But if Russian Machists, wishing to be Marxists, diplomatically bypassed one of Engels's most decisive and categorical statements, they "worked over" another statement of his in quite a crude fashion. However tedious and heavy the task of correcting distortions and perversions of the meaning of quotations, one cannot avoid it if one wishes to speak of Russian Machists.

Here is Bazarov's working over of Engels.

In the article "On Historical Materialism,"[70] Engels speaks of English agnostics (philosophers of the Humean line) as follows:

"…Our agnostic agrees that all our knowledge is based on those communications (Mitteilungen) which we receive through the mediation of our senses…".

So let us note for our Machists that the agnostic (Humist) too begins from sensations and recognizes no other source of knowledge. The agnostic is a pure "positivist," for the benefit of supporters of "the latest positivism"!

"…But, – he adds (the agnostic), – how do we know that our senses give us true images (Abbilder) of the things perceived by them? And, further, he informs us that when he speaks of things or their properties, he is actually not referring to the things themselves or their properties, about which he can know nothing with certainty, but only to the impressions which they have produced on his senses…"{37}.

What two lines of philosophical trends does Engels counterpose here? One line – that senses give us true images of things, that we know the things themselves, that the external world acts upon our sense organs. This is materialism, with which the agnostic disagrees. What then is the essence of his line? It lies in the fact that he does not go beyond sensations, in the fact that he stops on this side of phenomena, refusing to see anything "certain" beyond sensations. About the things themselves (i.e., about things-in-themselves, about "objects in themselves," as the materialists said, with whom Berkeley disputed) we can know nothing with certainty – such is the agnostic's completely definite statement. Consequently, the materialist in the dispute of which Engels speaks asserts the existence and cognizability of things-in-themselves. The agnostic does not permit even the thought of things-in-themselves, declaring that we can know nothing certain about them.

The question arises: how does the agnostic's point of view as expounded by Engels differ from Mach's point of view? By a "new" little word "element"? But this is pure childishness – to think that nomenclature can change a philosophical line, that sensations, called "elements," have ceased to be sensations! Or by the "new" idea that one and the same elements in one connection constitute the physical, in another the psychical? But did you not notice that the agnostic in Engels also substitutes "impressions" for "the things themselves"? Consequently, in essence, the agnostic too distinguishes between physical and psychical "impressions"! The difference again is purely one of nomenclature. When Mach says: bodies are complexes of sensations, then Mach is a Berkeleyan. When Mach "corrects himself": "elements" (sensations) can be in one connection physical, in another – psychical, then Mach is an agnostic, a Humist. From these two lines Mach does not escape in his philosophy, and only extreme naivety can believe this muddle-head on his word that he has truly "transcended" both materialism and idealism.

Engels deliberately does not cite names in his exposition, criticizing not individual representatives of Humism (professional philosophers are very inclined to call minuscule modifications introduced by one or another of them into terminology or argumentation "original systems") – but the entire line of Humism. Engels criticizes not particulars but essence; he takes that which is fundamental in how all Humists depart from materialism, and therefore Engels's criticism applies to Mill, Huxley, and Mach alike. Whether we say that matter is a permanent possibility of sensations (according to J. S. Mill), or that matter is more or less stable complexes of "elements" – sensations (according to E. Mach) – we remain within the bounds of agnosticism or Humism; both points of view, or rather, both these formulations are covered by Engels's exposition of agnosticism: the agnostic does not go beyond sensations, declaring that he cannot know anything certain about their source or their original, etc. And if Mach attaches great importance to his divergence from Mill on the said question, it is precisely because Mach falls under the characterization given to ordinary professors by Engels: Flohknacker – you've pinched the flea, gentlemen, by introducing corrections and changing nomenclature instead of abandoning the basic halfway point of view!

How then does the materialist Engels refute – at the beginning of the article Engels openly and decisively counterpoises his materialism to agnosticism – the adduced arguments?

"…There is no doubt about it, – he says, – this is such a point of view which is apparently difficult to refute by argumentation alone. But before people began to argue, they acted. 'In the beginning was the deed.' And human activity resolved this difficulty long before human reasoning invented it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. 'The moment we apply the properties we perceive in a thing for our purposes, we subject them to an infallible test whether our sensory perceptions of it are correct or not. If these perceptions are false, then the application will necessarily fail, every attempt will miscarry. But if we succeed in attaining the purpose we have set, if we find that the thing acts in the way that its properties supposed to make it act, then we have positive proof that our perceptions of those properties, so far, agree with reality outside of ourselves…"'{37}.

Thus, the materialist theory, the theory of the reflection of objects by thought, is here expounded with complete clarity: outside us there exist things. Our perceptions and representations are images of them. The verification of these images, the separation of the true from the false is given by practice. But let us listen to Engels a bit further (Bazarov terminates his quotation from Engels or from Plekhanov here, for with Engels himself he apparently finds it unnecessary to settle accounts).

"…If, on the contrary, we find that we have made an error, then mostly very soon we are able to find the cause of the error; we find that the perception that formed the basis of our test was itself either incomplete and superficial, or was combined with the results of other perceptions in a way which the actual state of affairs does not justify…" (the Russian translation in "Historical Materialism" is inaccurate). "So long as we proceed correctly in forming our notions, so long as we do not thoughtlessly mix perceptions together, so long as we do not use our sense-organs correctly, so long as our sense-perceptions and the deductions we make from them are not at variance with the results of any other perception, – we shall always find that the success of our actions furnishes proof of the agreement (Übereinstimmung) of our perceptions with the objective (gegenständlich) nature of the things perceived. There is not a single fact known to us, so far as we are aware, which contradicts this. But there are such facts, so far as we know at present, that would force us to conclude that our sense-perceptions, scientifically tested and correctly used, produce in our brain representations of things outside us which are in any way different in nature from the things themselves, or which exist in some sort of mystical connection with them.

But now comes the Neo-Kantian agnostic and says…"{38}.

We shall leave the analysis of Neo-Kantian arguments for another time. Let us note that anyone at all acquainted with the matter, or even simply an attentive reader, cannot help but understand that Engels is expounding here that very materialism with which all Machists everywhere and always do battle. And now observe the methods of Bazarov's working over of Engels:

"Here Engels, indeed, – writes Bazarov apropos of the passage noted by us in the quotation – stands against Kantian idealism…".

That is not true. Bazarov confuses matters. In the passage which he cited and which we cited more fully, there is not a word either about Kantianism or about idealism. If Bazarov had actually read all of Engels's article, he could not have failed to see that Neo-Kantianism and the entire line of Kant is mentioned by Engels only in the following paragraph, where we cut off our quotation. And if Bazarov had carefully read and thought about the passage which he himself quoted, he could not have failed to see that in the arguments of the agnostic refuted here by Engels there is nothing whatsoever either idealistic or Kantian, for idealism begins only when a philosopher says that things are our sensations; Kantianism begins when a philosopher says: the thing-in-itself exists, but it is unknowable. Bazarov confused Kantianism with Humism, and he confused them because, being himself half-Berkeleyan, half-Humist of the Machist sect, he does not understand (as will be shown in detail below) the difference between the Humist and materialist opposition to Kantianism.

"…But – alas! – Bazarov continues, – his argumentation is directed against the philosophy of the Plekhanov school as much as against Kantian philosophy. In the Plekhanov-Orthodox school, as Bogdanov has already noted, there is a fatal misunderstanding about consciousness. It seems to Plekhanov – as to all idealists – that everything given to sensation, i.e., everything that is conscious, is 'subjective,' that to begin only from the actually given means to be a solipsist, that real being can be found only beyond all immediately given things…".

This is entirely in the spirit of Chernov and his assurances that Liebknecht was truly a Russian Populist! If Plekhanov is an idealist who has departed from Engels, then why are you, allegedly a supporter of Engels, not a materialist? This is simply a wretched mystification, comrade Bazarov! With the Machist little word "immediately given," you begin to confuse the distinction between agnosticism, idealism, and materialism. Understand that "immediately given," "actually given" is a confusion of the Machists, immanentists, and other reactionaries in philosophy, is a masquerade in which the agnostic (and sometimes in Mach also the idealist) disguise themselves in the costume of a materialist. For the materialist, the external world is "actually given," of which our sensations are images. For the idealist, "actually given" is sensation, while the external world is declared a "complex of sensations." For the agnostic, "immediately given" is also sensation, but the agnostic goes no further either toward the materialist recognition of the reality of the external world or toward the idealist recognition of the world as our sensation. Therefore your expression: "real being" (according to Plekhanov) "can be found only beyond all immediately given things" is nonsense, necessarily flowing from your Machist position. But if you have the right to occupy any position whatever, including the Machist one, then you do not have the right to pervert Engels when you speak of him. And from the words of Engels it is clearer than clear that for the materialist real being lies beyond the "sensory perceptions," impressions, and representations of human beings, while for the agnostic it is impossible to go beyond these perceptions. Bazarov believed Mach, Avenarius, and Schuppe that "immediately" (or actually) given unites the perceiving I and the perceived environment in the notorious "inseparable" coordination, and tries to slip this nonsense to the materialist Engels in a way unnoticed by the reader!

"…The above excerpt from Engels seems to have been written by Engels deliberately in order to dispel in the most popular and generally accessible form this idealistic misunderstanding…".

It is no wonder that Bazarov was in Avenarius's school! He continues his mystification: under the guise of fighting idealism (about which there is not a word in Engels here), he smuggles through idealistic "coordination" as contraband. Not bad, comrade Bazarov!

"…The agnostic asks: how do we know that our subjective feelings give us a correct representation of things?..

You confuse matters, comrade Bazarov! Engels does not say himself, and does not even ascribe to his enemy, the agnostic, such nonsense as "subjective" feelings. There are no feelings other than human ones, i.e., "subjective" – for we reason from the point of view of a human being, not a forest spirit – there are none. You again begin to slip Machism to Engels: they say, the agnostic considers feelings, more precisely sensations, to be only subjective (the agnostic does not consider this!), and we with Avenarius have "coordinated" the object in an inseparable connection with the subject. Not bad, comrade Bazarov!

"…But what do you call 'correct'? – Engels replies. – What is correct is what is confirmed by our practice; consequently, insofar as our sense perceptions are confirmed by experience, they are not 'subjective,' i.e., not arbitrary or illusory, but correct, real, as such…".

You confuse matters, comrade Bazarov! You substitute the question of the existence of things outside our sensations, perceptions, representations with the question of the criterion of the correctness of our representations of "these very" things, or more precisely: you obstruct the first question with the second. But Engels directly and clearly says that what separates him from the agnostic is not only the agnostic's doubt about the correctness of images, but also the agnostic's doubt about whether one can speak of things themselves, whether one can know "with certainty" of their existence. Why did Bazarov need this rigging of the case? In order to obscure, confuse the fundamental question for materialism (and for Engels as a materialist) about the existence of things outside our consciousness, causing sensations by their action on the sense organs. One cannot be a materialist without deciding this question affirmatively, but one can be a materialist with various views on the question of the criterion of the correctness of those images which the senses provide us.

And again Bazarov confuses matters when he ascribes to Engels a ridiculous and ignorant formulation in the dispute with the agnostic, as if our sense perceptions are confirmed by "experience." Engels did not use and could not use this word here, for Engels knew that both the idealist Berkeley and the agnostic Hume and the materialist Diderot appeal to experience.

"…Within those boundaries in which we in practice deal with things, representations of the thing and of its properties coincide (stimmen mit) with the existing external reality. 'Coincide' is a bit not the same as being an 'hieroglyph.' Coincide means: within given boundaries sensory representation itself is (Bazarov's italics) the existing external reality…".

The end crowns the work! Engels is worked over for Mach, fried up and served in Machist sauce. Let's hope our respectable chefs don't choke on it.

"Sensory representation itself is the external reality existing outside us"!! This is precisely the basic absurdity, the basic confusion and falsity of Machism, from which all the rest of the gibberish of this philosophy has crawled out, and for which avowed reactionaries and preachers of priesthood, immanentists, kiss Mach and Avenarius. However V. Bazarov twisted and turned, however he schemed, however he maneuvered diplomatically, getting around sensitive points, in the end he still let it slip and revealed his entire Machist nature! To say: "sensory representation itself is the external reality existing outside us" – means to return to Humism or even Berkeleyanism, hiding in the fog of "coordination." This is idealistic falsehood or the evasion of an agnostic, comrade Bazarov, for sensory representation is not external reality existing outside us, but only an image of this reality. Do you want to seize upon the ambiguity of the Russian word: совпадать [coincide]? Do you want to convince an uninformed reader that "coincide" means here "be the same as" rather than "correspond"? This means building your entire forgery of Engels for Mach on a distortion of the meaning of the quotation, nothing more.

Take the German original, and you will see the words "stimmen mit," i.e., correspond, accord – the latter translation is literal, for Stimme means voice. The words "stimmen mit" cannot mean coincide in the sense of "be the same." And for a reader unfamiliar with German but reading Engels with even a droplet of attention, it is completely clear, cannot fail to be clear, that Engels throughout his entire reasoning treats "sensory representation" as an image (Abbild) of external reality existing outside us, that consequently the word "coincide" can be used in Russian exclusively in the sense of correspondence, agreement, etc. To ascribe to Engels the idea that "sensory representation itself is external reality existing outside us" – this is such a pearl of Machist perversion, such foisting of agnosticism and idealism onto materialism, that Bazarov cannot but be recognized as having broken all records!

The question arises: how can people not gone mad state in their right mind and firm memory that "sensory representation (within whatever boundaries, this is immaterial) itself is external reality existing outside us"? Earth is a reality existing outside us. It cannot either "coincide" (in the sense of: be the same) with our sensory representation, nor be in some sort of inseparable coordination with it, nor be a "complex of elements," in another connection identical with sensation, for the earth existed when there was neither man, nor sense organs, nor matter organized in such a higher form in which the property of matter to have sensations is distinctly noticeable.

That is precisely why those tortured theories of "coordination," "introjection," newly discovered elements of the world, which we analyzed in the first chapter, serve to cover up all this idealistic absurdity. Bazarov's formulation, carelessly and incautiously thrown out by him, is admirable in that it clearly reveals the glaring absurdity which otherwise has to be dug out from under a heap of scholarly, quasi-scientific, professorial finickiness.

Hail to you, comrade Bazarov! We shall erect a monument to you in your lifetime: on one side we shall inscribe your saying, and on the other: to the Russian Machist who buried Machism among Russian Marxists!

On two points touched by Bazarov in the cited passage: the criterion of practice among agnostics (Machists included) and materialists, and the distinction between the theory of reflection (or imaging) and the theory of symbols (or hieroglyphs) – we shall speak separately. For now, let us continue somewhat further the quotation from Bazarov:

"…And what lies beyond these boundaries? On this question Engels says not a word. He nowhere shows any desire to perform that 'transcensus,' that going beyond the sensually given world, which lies at the basis of the Plekhanov theory of knowledge…".

Beyond which "these" boundaries? Beyond the boundaries of Mach and Avenarius's "coordination," which allegedly inseparably merges I and environment, subject and object? The question itself which Bazarov poses is devoid of sense. And if he had posed the question in human fashion, he would have seen clearly that the external world lies "beyond the boundaries" of sensations, perceptions, representations of human beings. But the little word "transcensus" gives away Bazarov again and again. This is a specifically Kantian and Humean "dodge," the drawing of a principled boundary between phenomenon and thing-in-itself. To pass from phenomenon, or if you will, from our sensation, perception, etc., to a thing existing outside perception is a transcensus, says Kant, and this transcensus is admissible not for knowledge but for faith. Transcensus is not admissible at all, – objects Hume. And Kantians, like Humists, call materialists transcendental realists, "metaphysicians," making an illegal transition (in Latin transcensus) from one domain to another, a domain that is in principle different. Among modern professors of philosophy following the reactionary line of Kant and Hume, you can find (just take the names listed by Voroshilov-Chernov) endless repetitions in a thousand variations of these accusations against materialism of "metaphysics" and "transcensus." Bazarov borrowed both the little word and the train of thought from reactionary professors and trumpets it in the name of "the latest positivism"! But the whole point is that the very idea of "transcensus," i.e., a principled boundary between phenomenon and thing-in-itself, is a vain idea of agnostics (Humists and Kantians included) and idealists. We have already clarified this by Engels's example with alizarin and shall clarify it further with words from Feuerbach and J. Dietzgen. But first let us finish Bazarov's "working over" of Engels:

"…In one place in his 'Anti-Dühring' Engels says that 'being' outside the sensual world is an 'offene Frage,' i.e., a question for the solution and even for the posing of which we have no data."

Bazarov repeats this argument after the German Machist Friedrich Adler. And this last example is scarcely any better than the "sensory representation" which "itself is external reality existing outside us." On page 31 (fifth German edition) of 'Anti-Dühring' Engels says:

"The unity of the world does not consist in its being, although its being is the presupposition of its unity, for the world must exist before it can be one. Being is in general an open question (offene Frage), beginning with the limit where our field of vision (Gesichtskreis) ceases. The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved not by a few conjuring tricks with words, but by a long and difficult development of philosophy and natural science"{39}.

Look at this new hash of our cook: Engels speaks of being beyond the boundary where our field of vision ends, i.e., for example, about the existence of people on Mars, etc. Clearly, such being really is an open question. But Bazarov, as if deliberately not providing the full quotation, paraphrases Engels as if the question is open about "being outside the sensual world"!! This is the height of nonsense, and Engels is ascribed here the view of those professors of philosophy whom Bazarov is accustomed to believe on their word and whom J. Dietzgen justly called graduated lackeys of priesthood or fideism. In fact, fideism asserts positively that something exists "outside the sensual world." Materialists, in solidarity with natural science, decisively reject this. In between stand the professors, Kantians, Humists (Machists included) and others who "found truth outside materialism and idealism" and who "reconcile" matters: this is, they say, an open question. If Engels had ever said anything like that, it would be a shame and a disgrace to call oneself a Marxist.

But enough! Half a page of quotations from Bazarov – such a tangle of confusion that we are forced to limit ourselves to what has been said, not following further all the waverings of Machist thought.